Mystery corbels

[Roger H]

Hi all.

A friend of mine located a pair of stone items in his C18 attic. They look to be the capitals (?) of a pair of jambs to a fire place judging by the soot. Both of them have an odd looking scalloped out detail on the outside-top. To the inside of this scallop is broken stone, suggesting they have been part of the same lintel/mantlepiece/span, now severed.

Has anyone seen that sort of scalloped detail on a fire surround before? I'd have thought they would typically end with a sharp corner rather than an inversion. Ideas welcome.

I'd add that the building is in the vicinity of a medieval abbey, and contains a few bits of salvage from that building following its dissolution.

and this...

 

[LadyArowana]

Could the soot have been from a fire, the unintended/ out of control sort? that came out through a window and meant things were damaged and then got removed/ replaced? It would seem a strange thing to do to a fireplace, but then again many strange things are done!

 

[Roger H]

Maybe... Although the soot seems concentrated on the roughly tooled inner face, with a bit of overspill on the rebated mouldings, and no smoke or soot on the smooth flanks. To me that says the roughly tooled bit is a not very visible part of the object e.g. within a fire, and the very smooth flanks are the sides of the jambs. Is odd.

It's the matching scalloped bits that intrigue me as I can't see them on any other jambs/corbels/lintels on my recent interent trawl...

 

[Roger H]

Ok, I have self-solved.

I came across a furniture advert that had an identical set of stones as inserts in their fireplace. Not much mention of these items on the internet but I think they may be ‘hob stones’, precursors to the metal hob grates which often echo the same curved details. So basically they sit inside your fireplace and hold the fire grate. Nothing to do with corbels at all..



My stones as below in their probable format which I think clears the mystery up.

 

[LadyArowana]

How fabulous to find the answer accidentally like that.

 

[Feltwell]

Not seen those before! Well done for working it out.

 

[worms]

Amazing! Do you have a cunning plan for how you will use or display them to best effect?

 

[Roger H]

Amazing! Do you have a cunning plan for how you will use or display them to best effect?

Well, they aren't mine but the owner (holding tape measure, top pic) reckons he will reinstate them in one of his fireplace openings - almost certainly where they orginally came from. If he does, I'll post a pic.